Living in a house set in about ten acres of terraced land on the side of a hillside is not everyone’s cup of tea. When we first came the road was an unmade agricultural track which in the winter became striped with small ravines some 2 ft deep and up to a foot wide. In parts there was barely a tyre’s width of surface to aim for. After petitioning the mayor we eventually had the road concreted; in part and with such a poor mix that potholes are already appearing. Near the bottom of the road, in front of a row of houses where influential people must live, the most amazing strip of road has been built; the motorway of Kythera. This 100 yard stretch not only had good quality asphalt but concrete haunches and kerbstones on either side – the only road on the island with such luxury.
At the end of this homage to road building it is a different scene. A sharp 240’ left hand corner, followed by 150 yards of steep incline to a 90’ right hand corner followed by some 250 yards of further incline eventual reach the concrete. No amount of petitioning the current mayor can bring forth anything more than promises and the occasional grader to smooth the surface when the road is almost impassable. In the summer this is dust pitted with rocks suitable only for the experienced rally drivers. It takes gallons of water to keep the car clean, and we have required two new tyres this year. In the winter it is a quagmire at the bottom as the ravines reappear; we sometimes go for days when we cannot come up the road which means a 5 mile detour to come down the mountain.
But, it is just this phenomenon which means that on the occasion that we do hear a vehicle – about once or twice a day - we rush to the window to see who it is. Our rarely interrupted access combined with our location on the mountainside in a hot climate means we share our home and garden with all manner of creatures. Now both Waldo and I were brought up in the countryside and thus find most of the inhabitants interesting or endearing. No so some of our visitors who have the ‘townies’ squeamishness over things that wiggle, crawl and creep.
The main full-time residents of home and garden are the little geckos who are everywhere. One large family lives in the stone pillar in the corner of the kitchen patio. These little fellows don’t do much in the heat of the summer’s days but in the evening scurry around the patio chasing each other and tiny flies which they eat with relish. In the cooler days of Spring and Autumn They bask on their favourite stones and I can usually gauge how warm the day will be by the number of geckos in view. Two geckos and I will need a cardigan; seven and it will be a beautiful day requiring a no sleeved cotton top. When we take a break and sit quietly on the patio we can hear these little chaps bark to each other. I can almost imitate this noise, but Waldo’s looser false teeth enable him to really talk to the geckos; yes they do reply! Sometimes one might even creep towards us, tail held high and as if waving. Now according to David Attenborough this is a sign of sexual readiness; I can’t remember whether it is by the male or female or both. I suspect from our observations that it is the male. Last year Waldo thwarted one little chap’s chances in the sexual marketplace by inadvertently stepping on his tail; the gecko wriggled and wriggled until he came free and scurried off leaving his tail alone and wriggling on the floor. He is still around and we see ‘Tony Tailless’ quite regularly around the rose garden or on the chess patio. We have a few house geckos. Two live in Waldo’s office and spend most of their time on the curtains. ‘Tom’ and ‘Jerry’ in the lounge squabble daily and every now and then have a good old fight arching their bodies, sizing each other up and then rushing at each other like some prehistoric animals in a movie scene. ‘Fatso’ lives at the back of the fireplace and pops out to see us most evening, usually chewing something. We leave these harmless creatures to get on with their lives and eat up the tiny flies, baby spiders and all manner of little things we do not want in the house.
One day Waldo had been working in the AcropoLiz. Quite a few families of geckos live there and can be seen on the tiled roof basking in the sun. Waldo was using a polystyrene spray which expanded and sealed up holes; I wanted my office space to be absolutely spider proof! He came in for a break. I made coffee and my friend Jan and I were sitting with him in the kitchen chatting. Now Waldo has quite a long white beard and does have a tendency to spill drinks and food down it. People must think that I have a strange affliction for I am frequently seen to rub down some mythical beard of my own, which is a signal to Waldo to rub or comb his. So whenever we had people around and we are eating I am constantly watching Waldo’s beard. Amazingly I could see a small part of it moving. Before I could move forward to check this out a little gecko, front legs parting the hairs as though moving through a jungle, suddenly broke free and popped his head out from Waldo’s beard. The poor little thing looked so exhausted and shocked. I burst into laughter, Jan groaned as she wasn’t too sure about these things and Waldo just sat there saying ‘What? What are you laughing at?’ I put my hand in front of the gecko for him to walk onto it, but he turned back into the jungle and emerged on Waldo’s neck, climbed over his collar and onto his shoulder. Eventually he ran down Waldo’s arm and onto my hand, his tiny suction padded feet clamping to my skin as he walked. I took him outside and let him down gently. He barked and scuttled away. When I went back inside Waldo was just recovering from his close encounters of the gecko kind.
The green lizards here are beautiful. Young they are a sort of olive green gradually turning to a luminous limey emerald. They are quite shy but do scamper around the patio beside the swimming pool. In the heat of the summer these beautiful creatures are drawn to the swimming pool for water. They drop down the steps and slake their thirst. Occasionally one falls in or finds the steps too big to climb up and Waldo then uses the big net that he has for cleaning leaves off the surface of the pool; he had become quite adept at some sort of lizard language telling these creatures to climb onto the net. Waldo then gives them an equivalent of a fairground ride as he swishes the net up and over the edge of the pool to dry land. It is fascinating how many lizards do not immediately scurry away but turn and look at Waldo as if to say ‘what happened there’? A few weeks ago Waldo had been so busy rescuing lizards that he became concerned as to what would happen if he wasn’t here or I didn’t hear the splashing in the water. I saw him gathering small stones and oddments of smooth marble which can be found all around the garden. The next thing I know Waldo came and asked me to see his triumph of building ingenuity. To one side of the steps to the pool was an array of stones and marble making easily climbable slopes and smaller steps; this ‘lizard ladder’ reaches right from a few inches below the water’s surface to the top edge of the pool. All Waldo has to do now is either train ‘the emeralds’ to use this ladder or perhaps put up a little sign ‘green lizards this way please’.
We have one larger lizard that we rarely see. Just occasionally ‘Thunderthighs’ can be found basking in a sunny patch on the path between the kitchen patio and the AcropoLiz. Waldo has only heard the rustle of a large creature in the oleander hedge but I have seen the creature. He is not quite 2 foot long, but has massively strong thighs and claws, a short neck and stubby tail. We let him get on with his life and he is far more likely to move away from us than bother us in any way.
Freddy did become a pet. Now, whether it is our increasing time spent in isolation or whether we were both mad in the first place, we do spend a lot of time observing those around us and getting involved in their lives. Freddy just appeared one day, a very small greenish frog sitting on a pipe leading to the filter unit of our swimming pool. Freddy did little more than sit. Very occasionally we would see him in the water at the edge of the swimming pool, but more of the time he spent behind the filter unit. Every morning after I opened the kitchen door I would say good morning to Freddy, ask him how he was, and what he was going to do today. At first there was no discernable response. But as the days, weeks, months passed I became convinced that Freddy recognised my voice. Every now and then he would humour me by turning towards me: Waldo reckons it was just coincidence, but then I just think he was jealous because Freddy never turned to him! As the summer became hotter and hotter we realised that the water level of the pool was dropping and Freddy was finding it more and more difficult to get back up onto the pipe after a swim. Waldo solved Freddy’s problem by floating a short length of wood in the pool. At first the piece of wood moved around as the wind took it, thus Waldo tied the wood so that it stayed in the shaded corner that Freddy preferred. After about a week this intelligent frog learned how to climb up onto the wood. For some reason he only sat at one end so that he looked as though he was on some form of water ski. Freddy would sit for hours on the wood, just turning slightly every now and then. As some unsuspecting fly settled on the wood, Freddy’s tongue would dart out and the fly would disappear. This lazy life meant that Freddy was visibly growing, no longer a young greenish frog he was turning into a dumpy spotted adult leopard frog. He could look quite intimidating as he squatted Buddha-like on his plank. Gradually the plank started to sink under Freddy’s increasing weight. Not to be outdone, Waldo cut a short plank from a thicker piece of wood. It still floated and Waldo tied it near Freddy’s corner. Seeing Freddy was such a pleasure, but we were concerned that he might be lonely. Friend’s playing along with our strange obsession started to give us green frog gifts; a green rhinestone encrusted brass frog, a pottery green frog sitting on a stone, a green glass frog. As summer melted into Autumn we started to have some rain and the pool started to fill up again. Freddy could now reach his pipe again, but the fat old frog could no longer squeeze himself into the space he had enjoyed in his youth. One morning, after a particularly strong thunder storm Freddy was not there to greet me in the morning. We pined and fretted wondering what had happened. I ‘Googled’ ‘frogs’ and learnt that sometimes they do dive under water and can stay there for quite a long time. It was days before Freddy reappeared, much to our relief. We had seen him grow into adulthood and were keen to see what happened next. Sadly a few nights later we had an even stronger thunder storm and we have not seen Freddy since. I hope he’s hopped off to join other frogs somewhere.
Anyone who has ever been to Greece knows that there are cats everywhere. Our garden is no exception. In the beginning we would catch glimpses of two large feral cats, but they never came near the house. Then one day we could hear kittenish mewing and out from behind our two palm trees came two kittens. One was a marmalade colour and the other identically marked but in grey. They were clearly hungry and wary of humans. Now came the dilemma. We didn’t want to encourage them, feed them, befriend them and then just leave them to their own devices throughout the winter. On the other hand, we rationalised that it was good to have cats around as they would keep down mice, rats and unwanted vermin. We compromised and decided that we would not let them in the house nor touch them at all. We would put out some milk, just enough to keep them alive but not so much that they would not have to learn to hunt and feed themselves. It was a difficult time for all of us, they were just weaned and not big enough to tackle much to catch and eat. At night, if we had the curtains open and the lights on, the kittens would jump up and down by the glass of the patio doors catching moths that were drawn to the light. I desperately wanted to scoop them up and open a tin of tuna, but consoled myself with the fact that they were at least eating. One day the smells from my kitchen were obviously overpowering and ‘Marmalade’ came inside the house. When I went to scoot her away, instead of going out she ran through the lounge into the hall. With Waldo and me in hot pursuit she went into the spare bedroom and leapt onto the top of the wardrobe. Years ago when I worked for a pharmaceutical company and won an award with an advertisement entitled ‘When Pussy Smith becomes Tiger Tim’ with a picture showing what veterinary surgeons all over the world are only too familiar with, a cuddly family cat sees a vet with a needle and turns into a snarling, clawing tiger. Small as she was, Marmalade did a pretty good imitation of a tiger. She crouched, snarling at the top of the wardrobe. Waldo warned me to get out of the way, for fear she would leap straight at my face as I tried to smoothly talk her down. I opened the bedroom door and Waldo crept up behind Marmalade with a broom. He thwacked it on the wardrobe and Marmalade flew across the room, all four legs sticking out, until she reached the floor, sided on the marble, then regained some sort of purchase on the slippery surface. I had stood to one side hoping to shoo her towards the lounge and then eventually out through the kitchen. But no, she ran past me and then, seeing Waldo come out of the bedroom, eyes wide and broom aloft, Marmalade scrambled up the stone wall behind me. Now our hall is two stories high and how she managed to get up this height I don’t know, but she did, eventually getting to the mezzanine floor, running down the corridor and out through the front door which thankfully was open.
We didn’t see Marmalade for days, but Bobby Grey came to visit. He would just stand at the edge of the patio, Marmalade had clearly told him not to go in the house, where he would mew and look pitiful until I put out some milk. Marmalade and Bobby Grey grew into fine young cats, strong and clearly managing their territory. They would show themselves every now and again, and sniff as they lifted their heads in the air as if to say ‘see, we don’t need you’. It is over a year since I have seen Marmalade, but Bobby Grey is still around, still hunting and he considers it his right now to sleep the hot afternoons away on a sun lounger in the shade of our bougainvillea cascade on the back patio. Recently I had seen a new young cat around the place. Absolutely jet back, ‘Blackie’ is lean and mean. He takes no notice of us, doesn’t even look at the house, but swaggers around our patios as though it is clearly his territory. I do know whether he is a relation of Bobby Grey or not.
Perhaps the most endearing of our garden neighbours are our pair of pine martins. Friends on the island say that they are actually stone martins, but ours live in a collection of pine trees at the back of the swimming pool we call the ‘Muir Glen’; thus, to us, they are pine martins. I first saw Brenda and Jim when they were quite young. It was about six o’clock one morning and they were playing a sort of rough and tumble game on the patio beside the swimming pool. I felt so privileged to watch them, completely unaware of my presence. It’s worth getting up early in the morning to watch them and I frequently do. About half an hour after the sun has gone down Brenda and Jim take their evening stroll; our of the Muir Glen, around the swimming pool, up the steps to the kitchen patio, keep close to the wall, jump up and squeeze behind the big earthenware pot, do a little circus balancing act along the wall of the walkway running around the house, jump down to the back patio, down the steps and into the undergrowth by the eating olive trees. Jim leads and Brenda follows. All the time they are sniffing out new smells and searching for possibilities for food. To Brenda and Jim our garden is their territory and as such it had been well marked. When we have been away for some time, they take it upon themselves to remind us of this fact. Any door that we open and walk through, any garden furniture we sit in, any cushion on a wall we sit on, will be sniffed out that night and then Brenda or Jim mark their territory with a little poo. Every new piece of garden furniture is treated to Brenda and Jim’s welcome. We have learnt the ways of our pine martins. If we clear up their poo the day we find it, they remark it the next night. If we leave it at least overnight, by which time it is dry and presumably has little value as a scent mark, then when we remove it they do not remark. It is a small consequence to pay for such pleasure watching them and we believe they keep unwanted furry animals away in return.
Waldo has always been the sort of person to be going round the house muttering ‘where’s my ....’? Glasses and keys are the favourite. My mother has bought us at least four decorative key hooks to encourage him to hang them somewhere specific each time he comes in, but it is a discipline which completely evades him. Now of course as we have both aged the list is longer and I have joined the ranks of 'Have you seen my ...?; the piece of paper I had in my hand a minute ago, stapler, my pen - I had it just a second ago, the telephone, my wallet, indeed anything that isn’t a fixture! As Waldo's frustration mounts and after I have been cross questioned and found not guilty there can be no other solution in his mind; Brenda and Jim have got them. Over the years Brenda and Jim have apparently been walking around our side of the island wearing a fancy navy pair of shorts, a wonderful orange and black striped set of pyjamas, a pair of Ferrari sunglasses and the little devils have even had Waldo’s mobile telephone. So far they’ve returned everything except the ‘phone!
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